The initial answers are Rosamund, Fincher, as one host always answers for Fincher movies, and Bleaker the Cat (as transcribed); the Fincher case is that this is his most successful movie ever, in 2014 when movies were no longer successful at the box office, after which he dropped the mic, went to television and got all the money in the world from Netflix.
Fincher is obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock, speaking at length about studying his films in the documentary about the Hitchcock book (transcribed 'Hitchcock True Foe'), and this is a Hitchcock movie with more blood, sex and dick: a striking blonde, a scurrilous tall handsome movie actor and a changing sense of whom to trust, his ode to those films.
The Hitchcock argument convinces another voice; the Rosamund holdout thinks the part was so incredible that four or five actresses would have scored at least fifty points with it, but she is exceptional, so maybe it is a fair win for them and for Bleaker the Cat.
How many YouTube views would the clip of Amy returning covered in blood have? What would a Gone Girl sequel look like? What will the baby's life be like? Did no one hear them in the bookshop? Was there any fluffing? What would have happened if Nick had left? Did Amy go to Desi's knowing what she would do? Who are Tanner Bolt's two guys? What happened to Bleecker the cat?
Amy's return to Nick's house in front of the cameras: estimates start at 25 million YouTube views and climb to 125 million, since it would be the craziest clip of all time and a national story.
Rosamund Pike has mentioned rumors of a Gone Girl sequel she would be interested in; it could be the ten-episode Netflix show, the further adventures of Amy Dunn (as transcribed) orchestrating something else the internet would hate, or a pitched Gone Girl 2 in which Amy, Ben and their Damien-like daughter visit a carnival and cartel members shoot up the place over Affleck's bad drug deal, a Den of Thieves or Peppermint crossover, or Gone Boy with a five-year-old kidnapped at the carnival.
What their kid's life will be like: good at soccer and an Ivy League school, against the reminder that Amy is a psychopath, not crazy in the casual euphemistic sense, the star of a future Mindhunter season, so the child would not be happy.
Did no one hear them in the bookshop, with a person very close by; asked what they would do if they heard, the hosts would walk away, maybe taking out a few books first; a call to bring out Ben Affleck to demonstrate how he pulled it off ends the section.
Asked, as a question just for her, whether there was any fluffing, she is glad it was brought up, has been wondering about it, and thinks there had to be a little. — Mallory Rubin
Whether Amy went to Desi's knowing what she would do the whole time, or decided once she lost her money, is parked as an interesting unanswerable question.
What would have happened if Nick had left: fear of exposure of things he had done, fear that she would do something like kill his sister, or the baby, which one host calls the only thing that makes him stay, while another senses an ambiguity in the conversation with Margot that he wants to be with her.
Leftover questions: Tanner Bolt's two guys he keeps mentioning could have filled thirty minutes; and what happened to Bleecker the cat, who is said to be thriving, or to have run away and been hit by a car.
Rosamund Pike is the definition of Apex Mountain here.
Fincher's own apex was decided to be Social Network, the best movie of the decade for one host though the answer changes with every rewatch, which another disputes, with Benjamin Button the one nobody understands because it is not perverted; this was emphatically not Neil Patrick Harris's apex because he sucked in it.
Mountain Dew might be at its apex: amid the junk food of the makeover montage, mini donuts, a hamburger, Coke, Cheetos and Fritos, the camera lingers on the Dew poured into a glass so the spit is visible with the bottle still in frame, and Amy's satisfied sip signals she will let no slight go unpunished; Cape Girardeau (transcribed 'Cape Gerardo'), Missouri, is definitely at its apex.
Affleck studied men accused of killing their wives, especially Scott Peterson; Affleck lost a bet that Fincher would not notice a tiny lens change; the bar is now a real restaurant in Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Affleck's first on-screen full frontal, really a side view; 500 hours shot over a 100-day shoot; Pike and Neil Patrick Harris rehearsed the sex scene alone for two hours; Pike gained and lost 13 pounds three times; take 18 of the head-against-the-wall scene left Pike seeing stars; Gillian Flynn felt she had 'killed feminism' after the gender criticism; Reese Witherspoon held the rights before Fincher moved on
Affleck researched several men accused and convicted of killing their wives, paying particular attention to Scott Peterson, awkward reading for anyone married to him; on set he changed a camera lens setting an almost indiscernible amount and bet a crew member that Fincher would not notice, and lost when Fincher brought it up.
Asked whom Fincher identifies with more, the answer is Amy; asked about Gillian Flynn, the answer is Nick, offered as exactly why the movie works: there is a Nick and there is an Amy.
The bar is now a real restaurant exactly where it was filmed in Cape Girardeau (transcribed 'Cape Gerardale'), Missouri; this was Affleck's first full frontal on screen, which Fincher wanted to feel like a European movie, warts and all, though the hosts quibble that it is side-frontal or side-back, compare it to a Batman comic given his Batman prep, and recall Sidedick.com as one of five finalist names for the Ringer.
Fincher shot an allegedly incredible 500 hours of material over the 100-day shoot, five hours a day; by Rosamund Pike's account she and Neil Patrick Harris spent two hours alone on set rehearsing their sex scene at Fincher's request, with an unverified report that she practiced with a children's doll (transcribed 'Adora the Explorer'); she gained and lost 13 pounds three times, hamburgers and malts to gain it, four hours a day with a boxer and five miles of running to lose it.
Around take 18 of Nick bashing her head against the wall, Pike literally saw stars and felt she had a minor concussion; the hosts were 100 percent shocked by that late moment and read it as purposeful: Nick is not off the hook, he is a bad guy rather than a good one, they will stay together forever with something toxic between them, and you should not feel pure sympathy for him.
Flynn reportedly admitted the gender-related critical response affected her: she hovered under her covers saying she had killed feminism and had not meant to, then got over it.
Flagged early as half-assed internet research: Reese Witherspoon obtained the film rights, decided to produce and play Amy, then after meeting Fincher somehow let him talk her out of the part rather than insisting on it.
Casey Wilson is the pick, named by two hosts; Rosamund Pike also goes for it a couple of times, ratcheting up maybe ten percent too much in the 'I'm the cunt you married' speech; a Neil Patrick Harris award for why the fuck are you in this movie is invented on the spot and awarded to Neil Patrick Harris.
Nick's unshaven video-game swoon; Carrie Coon as the twin sister; the vigil selfie turning on Nick; the Nancy Grace character Ellen Abbott; the detective team of Kim Dickens and Patrick Fugit; the Mastermind board game and the other games; the Reznor and Ross spa-dread score; the meticulousness of Amy's plan; the side dick; Rosamund Pike's performance; the Twincest; Affleck's Mets hat; every small role perfectly cast; the twist
Affleck's unshaven video-game swoon has aged best for one host, a true-to-life moment that probably happened to him around 2006, bummed out in his living room with a laptop; Carrie Coon, in her first role, is believable as his twin, though ten years younger, and went on to star in The Leftovers.
The first gathering where the lady takes a selfie with them and then turns on them is really well done and has surely happened to Ben Affleck in real life; the Nancy Grace character Ellen Abbott and the detective team of Kim Dickens and grown-up Almost Famous star Patrick Fugit also hold up.
Fincher reportedly told press that the Mastermind board game Nick gives his sister was a red herring thrown in for his own amusement at critics scribbling it down; one host does not believe that for a second, arguing the games shown, Let's Make a Deal as they make their deal, Life with its meta line and a Ouija board as her talking from the dead, are all on purpose, and Mastermind is a game about entrapment and being smarter than your opponent; a confession of cheating at board games follows.
Fincher briefed Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (transcribed 'Tannicus') after a spa visit where music meant to relax him felt creepy, wanting passive music that instills dread, and the result feels like a spa where you might get stabbed in the aorta mid-massage; with Social Network it is an all-time two-for-two, Reznor's scores are argued to rival Nine Inch Nails in his legacy, with the ER episode that used Closer floated as his origin, and the Desi murder cue feels like it emanates from inside your chest, the hardest left turn the film takes.
The meticulousness of the plan has aged well, pouring wine on herself, untucking his shirt and knowing where every security camera is.
She disputes that: Amy's meticulous nature governs everything with Nick, plotted since she saw him with Andy in the snow replicating the lip wipe and sugar cloud from their own origin story, down to the 'kill self?' calendar entry, whereas the Desi material is purely reactive and instinctual, which is why she thinks the end of the movie does not work; Amy thought Desi would be another puppet, realized she was the prisoner in the dollhouse he built, and her way out is sloppy. — Mallory Rubin
The counter: she either went to Desi's knowing what she would do or decided once she lost her money, parked as an unanswerable question; Nick's woodshed line in the interview shows her he can keep up with her; anyone with eight weeks could fake a death, but she devised an instant exit without implicating herself, though she had already lost weight, cut and dyed her hair and built up rope marks on her wrists, so twenty-something days had passed.
One side holds that she got away with it only because the FBI agents should be jailed, not because she did a good job; the other sees an acid-dipped commentary from a female writer on believing women and survivors and the FBI's historical approach to trauma, something fraught and complicated inside an otherwise whirling thriller.
The side dick has aged best for one host, and nobody mentions that Desi's is visible too when she slides off him; Rosamund Pike's performance as Amy Dunn (as transcribed), which will live forever, is another host's answer to every category; the Twincest reference was followed by years of Twincest on Game of Thrones.
Affleck putting on a Mets hat in the airport, refusing the Yankees hat Fincher had in his head, has aged fantastically and the fight between them is great; the nitpick is that he should have worn a Cardinals hat given his Cardinals shirt, unless he bought it at the airport.
Also the musical score, awe-inspiring when it kicks in at Desi's murder; every single small role is perfectly cast, which everyone agrees has aged well; and the twist itself.
In the formal casting what-ifs, most having been covered already, the one new item is that Fincher cast Emily Ratajkowski on a recommendation from Ben Affleck, which the hosts find the funniest thing they have heard and worth a shout-out, joking about hiring her as a football writer to cover the NFC.
Jon Hamm was going to play Nick but Matthew Weiner would not let him out of his contract for the last season of Mad Men, the way The Office accommodated Ed Helms filming The Hangover at night; the part could have ignited Hamm's career as Don Draper in a bad marriage, though whether Hamm would have done the side dick is called the only question that matters.
The case against Hamm is that the role needs innate likability, and nobody ever simply liked Don Draper even if Hamm is loved in The Town and Baby Driver; the counter is that Nick is supposed to seem rationally likable yet somehow repellent, which Hamm could swing.
The relationship we have with Hamm is with Don Draper, while with Affleck it is with Affleck the public person; a Hamm version would still have been a good movie, because the film is about marriage, what women and men say they want, stardom and the media, bigger than Fincher's narcissism explanation; another voice thinks Hamm would have been good but loves that Affleck did this at the point of his completed comeback.
Tom Cruise as Nick Dunn is floated, with one voice calling the idea amazing, and rejected by the rest: he is too short and lacks Affleck's bulk and wide shoulders, you need to believe Nick can keep up with Amy, you need to see his belly exposed when he rolls over, and nobody can picture Cruise sitting down for Battlefield 3; Clooney fifteen years earlier is possible but a little too skinny.
Reese Witherspoon obtained the film rights intending to produce and play Amy, met Fincher and somehow gave the part up; the hosts cannot picture her riding Neil Patrick Harris covered in blood, finding her too earnest, open and likable to go dead-eyed the way Amy requires.
Other names reported for Amy: Charlize and Natalie Portman, both of whom would have been interesting though Charlize carries baggage as an actress, Emily Blunt, Rooney Mara whom Fincher had just worked with, Olivia Wilde, and strangest of all Dancing with the Stars' Julianne Hough, who got far down the road before her bid at a serious acting career stalled.
Fincher wanted an actress with a Faye Dunaway in Chinatown persona, someone who has experienced avenues of pain no one can articulate; he settled on Rosamund Pike because at 35 she could pass for 29 or 40, she was an only child like Amy, and after four or five of her movies he had never got a beat on her, an opacity he found interesting, when the natural move would have been Charlize.
Fincher has always had an eye for unproven, on-the-cusp talent, Pitt in Seven, Eisenberg and Rooney Mara in The Social Network, Mahershala Ali and Taraji Henson in Benjamin Button; the hosts expected Pike's career to go somewhere else after her Oscar nomination, and before this her notable role was Jack Reacher, an embarrassing part two years earlier.
Asked whether baggage with a real celebrity hurts a part like this, the answer is that for Amy you need to be totally confused about the person, the opposite of the Affleck character whom you must root for implicitly, so somebody you have never seen before makes it scarier. — Shea Serrano
Pike's biggest role until then was Jane Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, the book that turns up in the bookshop where they have sex.
